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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by molme@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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[-] Kalkaline@leminal.space 3 points 11 months ago
[-] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 0 points 11 months ago

I really wish we could get actual apples to apples "mass shooting" comparisons. Everything from the site you linked to Wikipedia has been restructured to help make the argument that the US has tons of "mass shootings."

Take this entry near me from that list you linked https://www.cleveland19.com/2023/12/04/cleveland-police-more-than-dozen-people-shot-several-stabbed-over-weekend/

The 4 people shot, there's no context as to whether that was random, gang violence, stray bullets in a conflict, etc. This sort of thing almost definitely happens outside of the US, e.g., https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/10/22/swedens-brutal-gang-problem-heres-what-officials-blame-it-on/?sh=6bb1d29fa281

In this particular case it's something that happened at 3 in the morning outside of a bar... Gang or not it was probably more drunken brawl where someone pulled a gun and things went bad fast.

That's pretty different from some person going to a university, a school, a public event, and unloading on anyone they see with intent to inflict as many casualties as possible on someone that they've never even spoken a word to ... which is what I remember a "mass shooting" meaning up until recently. And that shit doesn't happen 23 times in a single month. It happens a few times a year which given the size of the US is much more comparable (granted I think still elevated) when compared to European mass shootings.

[-] Kalkaline@leminal.space 1 points 11 months ago

Bro, come on. Sweden has a population of 10.42 million and they had a drop in gun violence from 62 homicides in 2022 to 42 in 2023. https://www.statista.com/chart/30946/annual-number-of-fatal-shootings-in-sweden/

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/31/1209683893/how-the-u-s-gun-violence-death-rate-compares-with-the-rest-of-the-world It's not even a close comparison.

Quit making bad faith arguments to defend the US, our gun crimes are super preventable.

[-] Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 1 points 11 months ago

Quit making bad faith arguments to defend the US, our gun crimes are super preventable.

It's not bad faith unless it's actually bad faith. An argument you don't agree with and you have evidence against isn't automatically bad faith.

I'd forgotten Sweden in general has such a low murder rate. But I mean, the closest state in terms of population is North Carolina.

In 2021 they had 991 murders of any kind, with 748 of those involving a gun, that's 243 without a gun. Sweden had 113 murders total. Even if nobody died by a gun, North Carolina had more than double the murders.

The point was comparing apples to oranges "mass shootings" that count any shooting with more than 1-2 people involved in the US vs "mass shootings" via the "traditional" "mass shooting" that involves a random gunman in a public place shooting a crowd or a school ... isn't really a helpful comparison.

If we want to keep diluting that point. Of all of the gun deaths involved in homicide, handguns make up nearly 2/3 of the gun deaths. Nobody in the conversation is talking about doing anything about handguns.

In all of these cases though, you know what Sweden has that the US doesn't? Universal healthcare... Which probably plays a role.

The US also has states like New Hampshire where with a population of 1.4 million there were 9 murders involving guns in 2021. Hawaii similarly has 1.4 million people and had 1 murder involving a gun in 2021. What's especially interesting there is New Hampshire has very permissive laws while Hawaii has more restrictive laws.

I'm not saying gun crime isn't preventable but the conversation about how to prevent it is missing a lot of nuance. The right needs to at least back mental health measures and the police need to make sure they're enforcing the laws already on the books (which might have prevented the Maine shooting). Having no guns in the country at all would certainly remove the gun crime problem as well but it wouldn't necessarily remove the murder problem. Mass shootings are a special case of the US violent crime spectrum that may or may not need special treatment.

I just want to stop comparing apples to oranges. If the case is "US mass shootings are out of control and we need an assault weapons ban" make the case without distorting the statistics and inflating them to include conflicts that the average person wouldn't consider a "mass shooting."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate

https://www.statista.com/statistics/301603/murder-involving-firearms-us/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/533917/sweden-number-of-homicides/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/type-gun-us-homicides-ar-15/story?id=78689504

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_New_Hampshire

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Hawaii

this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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